Swedish opposition holds strong poll lead as election nears

STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s center-left opposition maintained a clear lead ten days ahead of national elections, two opinion polls published on Thursday showed, with one pointing to a wider lead for the grouping of the Social Democrats, Greens and Left parties.The three opposition parties would get 48.0 percent of the vote, according to the Novus poll of 1,628 people conducted between Aug. 29 and Sept. 2 and published by television channel TV4. That was up 1.1 percentage points from the previous Novus poll released on Monday,Support for Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s minority, center-right Alliance government stood at 38.1 percent, down 1.3 percent. A separate Ipsos poll published on Thursday showed support for the center-left bloc at 48.1 percent, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous survey by the same organization a week ago. Ipsos showed support for the center-right Alliance government at 36.9 percent, down 0.8 percent.